Constant Motion, No Direction

I feel like Brownian motion with drift, constant movement, constant noise, no real direction. Just particles colliding inside me, endlessly. It’s exhausting. It’s everything.

This weekend broke something in me.

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A Glimpse of Something Better

On Friday, I tasted hope.
For the first time in two weeks since my cyst, I was able to eat solid food. I let myself believe, just for a moment, that maybe I was turning a corner. That maybe, just maybe my body was finally going to cooperate. That maybe I would be okay.

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The Body Remembers

Then Saturday came.

The pain returned, sharp, relentless, impossible to ignore. The kind that makes your body feel like a prison. I was sick to my stomach, unable to move, but I pushed forward anyway.

Because that’s what we do.

We get up and keep going while our bodies are on fire.

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Waiting for a Miracle

I held onto hope for Sunday.
An Easter miracle.

I wanted to watch my sweet boys run around looking for eggs. I wanted to be present. I wanted to feel like a mother instead of a body in survival mode.

I prayed deeply that the pain might ease, even just a little.

I prayed for a miracle, but it never came. It never does.

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Reaching for Relief

The day ended in desperation, too much Tylenol layered on top of pain meds that feel like they’re barely touching the edges of this pain. Sometimes it feels like they sit there, laughing at me in their little bottles, as if even they can see how bleak things have become.

I added Bentyl, just in case it was my stomach, and enough peppermint to make my GERD flare, I added this, and I added that.

I was grasping for anything that might bring even a fraction of relief. But at last, I sat in my oversized bed, praying for a miracle that never came; miracles seem to be missing me.

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No Rest, Only Survival

The night didn’t bring rest.
Only tears.

And now, in the quiet of the morning, I’m left with a realization I don’t know how to carry:

I don’t know how to solve the mathematical problem in front of me. There are too many variables, too much noise, and perhaps I’m missing the one thing I need most:

A calculator.

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The variable

I went to therapy hoping for a strategy or something to help me cope.

Instead, I was told something that broke me open:

I am coping.

She told me I am carrying the weight of my own illness, and the illnesses of five other people inside one body that refuses to give up. That showing up like this, every single day, is coping.

She told me that,

I don’t need another breathing exercise.
I don’t need another way to endure this.

I need relief.

She sees that I am carrying grief, fear, responsibility, layers of it, and I am still showing up. Still answering. Still moving. Still pretending there’s something left to give.

But if this is what coping looks like… then relief becomes the unknown variable.

The one thing I can’t solve for.
The missing piece in the equation.
The drift. The noise. The part that keeps everything from ever settling.

And the truth that no one wants to say out loud?

No one knows how to give it to me.

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An Unsolvable Equation

So what do you do when the pain doesn’t stop?
When your body won’t let you rest?
When you are doing everything “right,” and it still isn’t enough?

For the first time in my life, the noise of the equation is louder than my ability to solve it. There are too many variables. The constants don’t hold.

Who is my calculator?
Who helps me solve this?

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When the Answers Run Out

I am afraid of the night ahead.
And I don’t have a clear answer for what comes next.

Is hope just another coping mechanism?
Is prayer?

Or are they the only things keeping me tethered here?

How much pain can I endure before the math is no longer in my favor
before my life becomes a zero, pushed to the left of an equation that no longer works?

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To the Ones Who Are Still Showing Up

If you’re reading this and you’re in pain, real, bone-deep, soul-level pain. I want you to know this:

I see you.

I understand the exhaustion of showing up every day with a mask on, pretending you’re okay, so the world doesn’t fall apart around you. I understand what it feels like to live inside a body that won’t cooperate, to carry more than anyone can see.

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You Are Not Alone

You are not alone in this.

Even here, without answers, without relief, I can still say:

I’m here.
And I see you.

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If at any point this pain starts to feel like too much to carry on your own, you don’t have to do it alone. You can call or text 988 (Suicide & Crisis Lifeline) in the U.S.—they’re there 24/7, no judgment, just support. Even if you’re not sure what you need, they’ll sit with you in it. There is help: https://988lifeline.org/